Posted on 12/05/2009 11:19:27 PM PST by Yomin Postelnik
There is currently a move underway to discredit Mike Huckabee over the rightful pardoning of a then 16 year old who had been sentenced to 108 years on robbery charges. I make this statement as someone who fully supports the death penalty for murderers and for child rapists, but also as someone who recognizes that getting tough on crime means fostering sensible rehabilitation, not turning first time offenders into violent career criminals.
Yes, Governor Huckabee pardoned more people than most governors do. That’s because Gov. Huckabee isn’t thoughtless, callous or cruel and recognizes that public service actually entails service to the public. Sentencing a 16 year old to months of hard labor generally serves as the greatest deterrent (except in cases of murder and the like). By contrast, sentencing a teen to years in prison has almost inevitably bred nothing more than a violent menaces to society.
(Excerpt) Read more at americandailyreview.com ...
Put down the crack pipe.
Reply self censored to avoid banning.
So tell that to the dead cops families...
I don’t trust Huckabee. I’ve heard his excuses and am not buying it.
Sorry Chuck Norris.
I noticed his books at the B&N untouched.
I would not vote for Huckabee for governor of my state. Thats about all I have to say.
Tell it to the families of those four murdered cops.
You might as well say that you support Huckabee, which is pretty obvious from this article. However, no matter how you try to white-wash it, the criminal that murdered the police officers should not have been set free. Huckabee is responsible for this, no one else. The fact that he has been trying to blame others tells me the kind of leader he is.
16 year olds who’ve been sentenced to life for crimes other than murder are thrown into a violent despair. That’s what more than likely led to the horrific police killings - and if we want to stop them in the future, we need to look beyond emotion and get to the real problem.
Huckabee’s approach prevented much violent crime and radical Islamic recruitment. Those who criticize him promote more of the same.
By contrast, sentencing a teen to years in prison has almost inevitably bred nothing more than a violent menaces to society.LOL! Recent events have proven the opposite to be true dimwit.
You’re trying to say that my argument is politically motivated. My linking to a year and a half old column warning of the dangers of long sentences (dangers that led to just such a situation like that of Clemmons) refutes that.
Your assertion that “Huckabee is responsible... no one else” seems to be extremely politically motivated. Washington state gave him parole after he raped a child - something that no sane person, least of all Huckabee, would have done.
Are you able to even look at the true cause of an event? Read the whole article instead of name calling. I’ll be more than willing to debate whatever actual points you find against a needed approach that is absolutely necessary to preventing future killings.
Yes on the first. Perhaps yes on the second.
And as with Huckabee, you are looking for scapegoats. Perhaps if Clemmons had served a longer sentence he might have improved himself. Perhaps he would have been worse. Now we will never know. Cold comfort for the dead police officers and their families, though.
Perhaps if he hadn’t been given a sentence at 16 that turned him into a violent maniac and caused him to go from petty thief to rapist and murderer - as has happened the majority of times when such sentences have been handed down - he wouldn’t have been a killer. We’ll never know. But we can certainly analyze and look at the facts as the only way of trying to prevent numerous other cases.
You are incorrect. WA did NOT parole him.
You have that backwards. He was sentence because he was a violent maniac.
Let me get this straight. If we hand out “tough” sentences, we are creating animals. But if we give them light sentences, then we are turning them into peaceful individuals. That is what I am inferring from the first sentence.
No, he committed the crime he should have paid the time. Perhaps doing hard labor as well.
How can you say that prison led to his future behavior. His environment on the outside also contributed.
You are a liberal freak. And you call yourself “an adviser?”
The Huckster didn't need a brain to let all of those people go. Get real. He only had to exercise a lapse in judgment, which has to do with NOT HAVING A BRAIN.
Showing "compassion" by risking innocent lives is stupidity. Showing "forgiveness" when you weren't the one wronged is un-Biblical. Go read your Bible.
“By contrast, sentencing a teen to years in prison has almost inevitably bred nothing more than a violent menaces to society.”
Then kill them as Teens and avoid the future menance.
I saw Huckabee suck Geraldo’s ego tonight on FOX assuring ever the racebaiter Geraldo that a young black man in Arkansas caught with ONE OUNCE OF POT would go straight to jail while a white kid would get nothing.
What utter crap.
Most black kids arrested today for something serious have rap sheets longer than the Dead Sea Scrolls.
and nobody does jail time for one oz of weed unless they are on probation or parole or supervised release and then it’s not a given.
I lost whatever ounce of respect I ever had for him right then.....Geraldo just beamed with pride...good Gawd.
PC GOP like this we don’t need.
Untrue - at least read the facts before commenting. For child rape (pretrial, but evidence was ironclad), not robbery like Huckabee.
Pure liberal dribble
Good luck on that Huckabee/Forbes campaign.
Great video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faKzzgXVAv8
“Clemency, you can get it from Mike Huckabee”
nice homepage...been a while since i looked last.
Two members of the state parole board said Huckabee pressured them to show DuMond mercy, while Huckabee publicly questioned whether DuMond was guilty of the rape of a teenage girl. During the presidential primaries, a conservative group aired television commercials in South Carolina featuring the mother of Carol Sue Shields, whom DuMond killed in 2000 after his release.
Shooting re-opens Huckabee's clemency record
Early crimes
A decorated Vietnam-era military veteran, DuMond told reporters that he "helped slaughter a village of Cambodians".[5]
On August 8, 1972, DuMond was charged with murder in Lawton, Oklahoma. He committed the crime with help from two other men.[8] DuMond used the 17-year-old daughter of one of his accomplices to entice the victim to an isolated location, where DuMond and his accomplices beat him to death with a claw hammer. Prosecutors did not charge DuMond after he agreed to testify against the two others, though he admitted in court that he was among those who attacked the murder victim.
On October 19, 1973, DuMond was charged with molesting a teenage girl in the parking lot of a shopping center in Tacoma, Washington. The second-degree assault charge resulted in a five-year deferred sentence and mandatory drug counseling during the five-year probation.[8][5]
On September 28, 1976, DuMond was charged with raping a woman in DeWitt, Arkansas. The charges were dropped before trial with the condition he undergo counseling.[8]
[edit] Arkansas rape
DuMond received his second sexual assault conviction from a rape perpetrated in Arkansas in 1984. The victim, Ashley Stevens, was a 17-year-old cheerleader and a third cousin of then-Governor Bill Clinton.[9] Although she is much younger than Clinton, they share the same set of great-great-grandparents.
Wayne DuMond
Or is that just more "smear" and "political conspiracy" against your demigod?
There is also plenty more examples of his misguided paroles/clemencies/pardons gone awry.
How’s that sensible rehabilitation and thoughtful service to the public working out for the victims of the criminals Huckabee was involved in freeing?
In my opinion, Huckabee was self-serving; doing what he did made HIM feel good, as if he was morally superior. And arrogant. He did it because he COULD.
This is garbage. Huckabee’s actions and those of others like him are exactly why parents are afraid to let their kids out to play. Evil people are consistently released back into society to continue to prey upon the vulnerable because mush-headed do-gooders care more about themselves and the perpetrators than they do about society as a whole.
Yours is one of the more bizarre articles I’ve read. Yeah, a few “bad apples” get through, but mass murder and the rape of children are good for ya in the long run—really!
You should read the following article before you buy that story.
Huckabee is lying about cop killer's age and criminal record in Arkansas
If kids are given life sentences for robbery - yes, you inevitably create animals, lots of them.
Labor sentences aren’t light. They’re what’s needed. The recidivism rate in America is far more than in other countries. While we have health care, economy, religion, freedom of speech and a whole slew of other things right (until/unless Obama messes with them), they have sentencing in a more productive way. Sentences here were less harsh and more reasonable too, with plenty of leeway given to judges (and the judge in this case basically supported his parole) until liberals came up with “equalized” sentencing guidelines in the late 80s. So yes, across the board harsh sentences are another failed aspect of statism.
Well, if you’d stop faulting him for not having hindsight vision and look at the actual effects of long sentences, you’d see that it’s the system you advocate for that led to child rape and murder and everything else you list, not his parole.
Whoever wrote this is just plain stupid.
No, people do not dislike Huckabee because he is an unabashed Christian. It’s because he is a PHONY Christian. You were fooled. He’s a liar, and he lies about dumb things too, which gives him a bit of sociopathy.
Plenty of good Christians have SEEN THROUGH Huck’s act. I guess there are still a few who are fooled.
I will give you this: we need to bring back hard labor as well as self-sufficient farm prisons. Definitely.
Separate issue from Huckabee’s political career. Which is over.
The story is misleading - or “lying” as you would say. The kid was 16 at the time of the crimes. When he became an adult and raped the kid in May, that’s when he should have been executed, not let out. Huckabee’s actions were right and in the larger picture, needed.
Well, I'm a Jew and I can see through it. And Forbes would NOT run for President with Huck. Sheesh.
Great responses, everyone. Huckabee needs to realize that the jig is up and stop thinking about 2012.
Is this about how religious he is or about what makes societal sense and stops the development of career criminals? Please remind me.
Yes, I’d gather that he’s upright in his religious practice because he proposes sensible solutions - unlike the statist ones you propose that have turned kids into sadistic murderers - Clemmons being just one such case.
that's crazy logic... if he were incarcerated, he would not have committed those crimes... read up on him... you will find that he was violent before he spent time in prison... it was not the actual effects of a long prison sentence that made him violent... and again, had he served his original sentence, he would not have had the opportunity to rape a child and murder four officers...
at least be intellectually honest as a Huckabee supporter...
You’re an all around class act. You’re sure you’re not related to Clemmons?
But he was RELEASED on bail after being charged for second-degree rape of af a child and WAS facing seven additional felony chares in Washinton state, so the point is valid... Washington also bears responsibility and was the last to fail.
It should also be recognized that people like Clemmons are experts at manpulating people like Huckabee. More at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010385617_webmansought29.html
I quit listening to anyone who is so damned ignorant that they believe that if they pretend to not know the difference between ‘bail’ and ‘parole; and try to confuse ‘pretrial ironclad evidence’ with ‘proven guilty in a court of law’, that they will fool us into falling for their line of BS.
Ah, I get it now.
It’s “the system” that’s responsible for the crimes of Clemmons’ and others like him and leaving them in prison to rot is what lets them out to rape, rob, murder and terrorize.
I am being intellectually honest. I’m looking at the root cause - which Huckabee’s actions would prevent. The long sentence at 16 did nothing other than turn him into a maniac. Harsh labor for a short stint has often saved such people, when they know there’s an “after.” The sentence he got has almost always led to horrific results. We need to recognize it and address it.
I'll remind you of this: In neither of the articles you link us to (I include your “America’s Greatest Terror Threat – A Threat From Within and Its Easy Solution”) do you provide any statistics or studies that even start to say your “societal sense” makes for any “common sense.” In fact, you appear to be devoid of any logic, as well.
Your position is ridiculous and you show no merit to your reasoning. This is just “you” being “stupidly compassionate” seemingly for no apparent purpose save to spout off your mouth about your own words and your own dreamed up idea about saving hardened criminals, again with no proof.
It seems your belief that Clemmons is a class act—it’s just that he hasn’t yet been properly allowed to show his true colors.
After all, you are the one saying he’d be a fine man if only he hadn’t spent a couple years of a 108 year sentence behind bars, prior to The Huckster letting him go free.
Get real.
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